Element guards and covers for electric heating elements are largely cosmetic and they actually create a heat barrier as opposed to leaving them exposed as we do. Firstly, electric heating elements are extremely durable, you can virtually fold one in half and it will still get red hot. The risk of damaging heating elements from dropping parts or running into them with racks & carts is almost non-existent. Let’s just say this, if you’re dropping powdered parts off your rack onto the floor of your oven, you have other issues to fix. Secondly, a lot of customers are worried about hitting heating elements on the floor with their racking as they roll in & out of the oven, and it’s a rightfully valid concern. However, physics prevents this from happening. When you have an oven that is longer than it is wide, a cart or rack has to be pushed in very straight and square or you will hit the side-wall of your oven; geometry does not allow a rack or cart to go in at any angle that would allow the casters to hit a heating element down the center of the floor. Quite simply you will hit the wall before you hit a heating element on the floor. An image below shows how a rack must go in straight and there is not enough angular real estate to hit a floor heating element. We actually believe that having the heating elements on the floor is safer than having them wall-mounted or rear-mounted.
To the other point of creating a heat barrier, most manufacturers that use heating element covers, typically use covers that have less than 50% open space of holes or slots in those covers. They are reducing the radiant heat effects of those elements which slows warm up times, increasing electrical usage, and increases demand on circulation systems to make up for poor heating performance.
